Past, Present, Future of Work: Race and culture with Effenus Henderson

It can be a challenge sometimes to get out of the present moment and take a more bird’s eye view of changes in the workplace through time. How have cultures changed over time, especially in terms of culture, biases, and inclusion? Why is this important for companies to consider, as they plan for the future?

In this big-picture episode, Dr. Michael Baran interviews internationally acclaimed strategist, author, speaker Effenus Henderson. Effenus went from working on a tobacco farm in North Carolina to Chief Diversity Officer for Weyerhaeuser Company and now President and CEO of HenderWorks, Inc. and Co-Founder of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

In this episode, Effenus talks about a wide range of important issues: (a) his journey and experiences with segregation and bias, (b) the economic imperative for organizations to nurture culture, and how they can do that, (c) trust-building leadership in today’s complex world, (d) invisible barriers to success in the workplace, and so much more. He ends by talking about what the workforce may look like in 15 years, when the US becomes a majority minority country and how businesses must adapt with an inclusion lens to that diversity.

Resources mentioned:

Effenus Henderson’s book SPINE 

The Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion 

Effenus Henderson’s LinkedIn 

HenderWorks, Inc.

Transcript

Past, Present, Future of Work: Race and culture with Effenus Henderson

Is your company struggling, navigating through high turnover, toxic leadership, or a culture that's holding your team back from reaching its full potential? Well, you're not alone. So here's your host and guide, Michael Baran.

Michael Baran: Hello everyone and welcome to the Culture Advantage podcast. I am your host, Michael Baran, and today I have the pleasure of bringing you another amazing guest. FNI Henderson. And as you'll see from our interview, his journey is really fascinating. He went from, you know, working on a rural farm in North Carolina through making his way up in the corporate world to becoming a recognized speaker and thought leader around the world [00:01:00] on all kinds of topics related to what we talk about here, organizational culture Now.

Several things stand out to me from this interview. One thing that really has stuck with me are the stories from his life. Stories about segregation and bias that he's faced. And sometimes people have this idea that segregation was so long ago and we're so far beyond that. Yet Ness, who you'll be hearing from in a moment.

His family was the first family to integrate his school in North Carolina. His family, not his parents, his siblings. So when you hear people talking about how all that stuff, all segregation and all that was so far in the past, and we don't need to talk about it because it was so long ago. Remember that?

No, it really wasn't. And the [00:02:00] effects of that, the biases, the inequities, they still linger on. And I see people still trying to deny that that even happens. To give you a very recent example, just recently, I think it was around two weeks ago. SH RM had a conference, maybe, you know, SH rm, the Society for Human Resource Management.

They have annual conferences. They, I think they have three. They have an annual conference, a talent conference, and they have an inclusion conference specifically. And I've spoken at the, I've spoken at actually all those conferences lots of times, but always go to the inclusion one and speak. This year they stopped calling it the Inclusion Conference and they instead call it the Blueprint Conference.

Anyways, it just happened two weeks ago. I didn't go. And I did listen to one particular session though and watch it, on a feed [00:03:00] because I got a text from them, a sort of shocking text. I'm on the list and I got a text from them months ago saying, you know, announcing that they were gonna be having this big panel discussion, headlining discussion at the conference, and sort of listening across.

Differences panel conversation between Van Jones, who you might know from CNN and Robbie Starbuck. Robbie Starbuck, you might not know that name. He is not a human resources person. He is not an academic. He doesn't do research. He was a video producer and more recently. He has been leading the charge through basically social media bullying tactics, leading the charge, getting some organizations to stop their work around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

So [00:04:00] that's how he's known. Now, he has said some pretty hateful things. He's not a res, I don't think he is someone that is a respectable representative, that should be in this debate, that should be platformed at all as having a legitimate side to this discussion about what do we do about. Diversity, equity and inclusion in workplaces as human relations professionals.

So anyways, I listened to that session, and it pretty much went the way I thought it would. Robbie Starbuck was not. He was not there to listen. Right. His views are very much set and what he does is he really argues, I don't know if you remember way back when we talked about the difference between equity.

And equality. Right? So [00:05:00] equity would be kind of understanding that people need different things, need different supports, trying to get everyone to thrive, right? In a workplace, say, or in a society, equality would be, everyone gets exactly the same thing, right? And of course when you have equality. That often works really well for some people and not so well for other people, but it can be thought of as a kind of fairness.

And so that's basically what Robbie Starbuck does. He says Everyone should get treated the same. That's fair. That's the way it should be. Hey, I'm for fairness. I just want everyone to be treated exactly the same, and it kind of sounds good. To some people, but what it denies is the reality, that people experience the racism, the sexism, the [00:06:00] inequity, the microaggressions or subtle acts of exclusion, the biases that people experience, all of that that happens in the workplace, right?

And so he, by him saying, if you do anything to try to remedy that, that's unfair. Because doing nothing and leaving it the way it is, that would be fair. But of course that benefits people that don't experience all of those inequities and biases. Right. So that's his main point. And so what I'm talking about is he also is basically denying that there's anything going on in the present related, lingering on from those past inequities in terms of policies.

In terms of practices, in terms of violence, in terms of bias, and of course all that still plays a big role in our workplaces, and we should be doing something about it. That [00:07:00] really is the point of this conference or should be, what can we do about this? And we can have a discussion with differing viewpoints about what we should do to solve it as if it's based in real facts and real research.

We could definitely have differing viewpoints about this, but we can't really have a good discussion about it when this one. Side, and I'm putting that in quotes, has got its head in the sand about the reality or denying the reality that's happening. And so. I guess there's another point I wanted to make about research.

I mentioned research, and you might remember two weeks ago I interviewed a gender economist Kika Roy on the podcast, and Kika is an expert who does research and she, like other researchers, are often trying to solve a problem. They start with a problem that needs. Solving. They may come up with a [00:08:00] hypothesis and then go gather data to try to see what the, what's causing this problem.

Maybe test possible solutions. But they're really. Honestly, genuinely trying to solve a problem with good, solid research. Sometimes they get results that might confirm suspicions and sometimes they don't, but they have to let the data lead. Lead, right? The data speaks for itself and their methodology has to be sound because they don't operate in a vacuum, right?

They are part of a community of researchers, and they would be sort of run out of town, so to speak if they weren't using a good research methodology and thinking through potential issues. In fact, one of the things that. That academic papers often do is at the end they actually pose a counter argument and they point out all the potential [00:09:00] flaws with the research that they just did.

They're trying to be really transparent. Are there occasionally stories you will hear about researchers who. Who, you know, didn't do great research, of course, but we're talking about the vast majority of researchers. This is what people do. It's their job. They spend thousands and thousands of hours doing it.

They devote their life. To solving particular problems and answering particular questions. And I took a snippet of that interview, which was a video that Katko was talking about, the gender pay gap. And I put it on TikTok and yes, I'm now starting to put things up on TikTok and I put this snippet up there about her talking about the gender pay gap and.

There were interesting comments of people thinking, or at least saying that she's wrong, right? And yet they don't quite understand the way research happens. [00:10:00] They kind of, maybe they hear things in the media or maybe they have opinions, right? It's not like, I know physics where you don't necessarily have an opinion about it, so you might trust a scientist.

But when it comes to things like gender and pay gap and inequities, people have opinions about it and they use those opinions to say, oh, this person doesn't know what they're talking about. But think about how silly that is. These people dedicate their lives to these questions and they know so much about it and they're part of a peer group that also does research.

And if they, you know, if they're publishing their research and peer reviewed journals, they have other scientists, social scientists, checking their research methodology. So the point is just when people spend their lives researching specific questions like these, even if you might have an opinion on how it works, take their opinions seriously because they really do go deep on these questions.

I [00:11:00] mean, maybe those TikTok comments are all bots. I don't really know how it works, but anyways, they stuck with me. Okay. That's my rant about research. Now my friends, here's my interview with Evan Henderson.

All right. Welcome to the podcast everyone. I am really excited to speak with Ness Henderson today. Ness is President and CEO of Hender works, co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. He is the Chief Diversity Officer for ser. He's. Spin all over the world, internationally, recognized leader, all kinds of really exciting places.

Madrid, Stanbul, Rio de Janeiro, Morocco. He's an author. He is an advisor. Won multiple awards, all kinds of things. I could go on and on. I first met [00:12:00] FNS. What was it? Maybe 20 10, 20 11, something like that. Something like that, yes. Yeah. So we've known each other a long time. It is really a pleasure and an honor to have you here.

So welcome. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. All right, so shall we just dive right in? Eness, as you know, this podcast is all about organizational culture. What works, what doesn't work? How do we make it better? How do we avoid some pitfalls? So. You've worked for a long time trying to improve workplace cultures, right.

In various capacities. I wonder if we could start with just, what have you seen organizations do that really works well? Yeah, that's a very, a good question and I think. What they've generally done, those that do this well, is to understand that culture is something to be nurtured, to be groomed, that it is something that can change [00:13:00] based on the tone, the tenor of leadership.

And, the way people feel about how they are experiencing the relationships at work. Do they feel like they belong there? Do they feel acknowledged, recognized, and appreciated? And do they feel that their work really contributes to adding value to the organization? And so for me, culture is those things.

You know, that represent how you go about that. I'm reminded of the work of Edgar Schein and his work on culture and so forth, artifacts. Mm-hmm. And, you know, those visible and invisible things. Invisible things. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's important. And so you mentioned leadership as one of the key ingredients, like how does leadership impact the culture as, as far as you see it?

I did a lot of work, at Weyerhaeuser a number of years ago before I retired, with leadership and specifically relating to inclusion. And we wanted to focus on [00:14:00] the concept of inclusive leadership and what are some of the attributes of inclusive leaders. So we did a survey of employees. We just went out and asked, when you think of an inclusive leader, what kinds of things come to mind?

And we asked them just to. Throw out any thoughts that they had about that. And we, a small working group then took that data and then tried to bundle them into kind of strategic areas. And what we found were four basic things that they exhibited. One was trust. You know that, that, that what you said was your word, and it was reflected in your, not only your words, but your actions.

And so people not only observed what you say, but they observed what you, you did in relationships with. People other than yourself oftentimes. But another one was, around this concept of circles of influence. Oftentimes the go-to people or people you know are familiar with and inclusive leaders were those who intentionally [00:15:00] reached out to others who weren't.

You know, the people that you would normally think of, to invite them in and to expand kind of the circle of influence. And that circle represented people who might be markedly different in terms of their backgrounds, perspectives, and ideas. Third, area was this idea of communications, you know.

Talk about it, share your thoughts about, for example, the culture, what you want to see improved. So people want to hear from leaders in leadership about their views and so forth and their expectations. And so a part of what we found was that inclusive leaders are those that really communicate openly and transparently about what's going on and so forth.

And then finally, the idea of providing. Equitable or equal opportunity for development and growth. And so in this case, the leader in terms of the culture, really expected people to not just, focus on people who they were [00:16:00] familiar with, but people who had potential and could be developed and grow.

And so the whole strategy was, you know, a broader philosophy around employee development and so forth. Yeah. That's great. Do you have any, you know, I can think of so many examples of things I've seen leaders do that are either really good or really bad in terms of what you're saying. Do any examples come to mind?

Any stories about things that you've seen good leaders do that really made an impact? What I found was that leaders who constantly belittle, berate, particularly if it's in front of the team or others, then generally the team loses respect for that individual. So what I found inclusive leaders to do oftentimes was to invite people to, to give them feedback on, you know, how they're leading and to they, and when they say something or do something they didn't quite [00:17:00] understand or.

Might in fact have felt offensive to be able to say, can I talk to you? Can I share some feedback? So they really invited feedback from others about, you know, about their experience and how it made them feel. I think inclusive leaders do that quite. Quite well. And so I think if you, you know, if you look at the two extremes, I think a leader has to be, one who sets expectations, who holds people accountable, who checks in with them, but does it in a way that, is in the spirit of learning and growth and development as opposed to belittling and berating.

The individual. So what I found was the leaders who do that generally, command the respect of the team and people are willing to put out significantly more in terms of productivity and so forth in, in that type of environment. Yeah, there's such that what you said about inviting feedback can be so powerful when leaders say like, [00:18:00] you know, I know I'm not gonna be perfect.

I know I'm gonna mess up sometimes I want the feedback. And when you can tell when they really mean it and when they're just saying it 'cause they feel like it's the right thing to do, because you. See what they actually do, you know, day in and day out. Do you think it's a change that you've seen in terms of how people are leading?

I think what's different, today is that the environment is so complex and things are constantly changing, and so organizations that survive have to have fairly. Good sensing skills, you know, in terms of what's going on with their employees, what's going on in the market, what's going on in the community, how am I communicating in today's environment?

News travels extremely fast, and if you're too slow in really responding to issues, challenges. Either internally or externally. You could find yourself in some level of trouble with your [00:19:00] stakeholders and so forth, whether it's employees, they want to know, they want to hear from you. And in this fast cycle environment, the thing that has changed is, if you don't communicate, someone will make a story about what they think you're going to say up.

It gets out there and it's hard to change or shift that per percept perspective. So my view is that leaders today have gotta show some level of empathy and compassion for folks, but I think they also have to be laser focused on strategic outcomes. What is it that we're trying to do? How does what you're doing help support that?

And, let's check in periodically to see how you're doing and what you need and so forth. So this learning orientation in an environment that's fairly, complex and constantly changing. Yeah, and there's this idea out there in terms of what you're saying. There's this idea out there.

I think that thinking about culture, thinking about [00:20:00] inclusion is something that takes away from hitting those strategic objectives. It's something that slows us down. It's something that's not as important. Can you talk about that, how thinking about that kind of stuff can actually get you further?

Towards your strategic goals? Well, first and foremost, what I see happening today is we have too many leaders that have a very short term orientation. You know, in terms of we gotta get this stuff done and we gotta do it in the next 30, 60, 90 days, without considering. How the decisions might impact long-term results in relationships.

And so while you might react to something that you see or some pressure that you're getting now. Without fully vetting and thinking about it carefully, you could in fact, put yourself in harm's way with your stakeholders, with customers, with communities, and with others who are playing a more significant role [00:21:00] in the business of business is, and so you have to be, really sure.

Of your mission. You have to be, you have to be reinforcing your shared values, you know, the things that you say you do, that people do not wanna see a disconnect between what you're saying and what you profess, you know, in terms of your values and how your business is carried out. Because that could be fairly deadly in today's en environment, in, in my view.

So I think you have to have a little bit of both. You have to have some, I think Brene Brown would say. Empathy, and Simon Sinek would say it as well, you know, in terms of what are the things, you know, that really cause people to want to get up and come to work that would have customers come and say, I wanna buy that product.

I want that. Or a community that says we want that organization in our community, or even in relationships with, local officials and government folks. You wanna be able to demonstrate, the license to operate in their community in [00:22:00] terms of the things that you're doing and how are you serving folks locally and nationally and internationally for that matter?

You've been doing this for a long time. Like what was it like doing the work that you're passionate about? In the early days, you know, when you first started out, like how, what were cultures like, what kinds of things did you see and how has that all changed? Well, it's been an ongoing process. I grew up in Eastern North Carolina.

On a farm, on a tobacco farm. And so the idea of working, professionally in a firm, was very foreign to me. During those early years. I had no clue what a personnel officer at that time was or a human resource officer was, or even. Just what, what was involved in business. And so for me, the early years was like, a kid learning something new and exploring [00:23:00] and wondering how to navigate that.

You know, I I didn't know, but I did have some guiding principles, you know, that. That were very helpful to, to be honest, to be truthful, to be curious, to ask questions. The early years, for me particularly, because we were coming out of, a segregated south, it was also how did you show up and how you dress and how you communicated and so forth.

So all of those things were things that. You had to test and try to figure out. And so when I, when I first started, you know, there was, the facility was in a town that was still very much segregated and even finding a place to live, wanting to do some of the things like. Some of the leaders there took for granted, like going to the country club to play golf and so forth.

Of course, I didn't know anything about golf, so it was not a big draw at that point. Right. I was, yeah, it was something I had to [00:24:00] learn later on as well. So I think the thing for me. Was also anticipating constructive feedback versus bias, you know, and tried to discern that because I was very unsure of whe whether when they're giving me this back to me, is it because.

Of who they see me to be. Mm-hmm. Or is it actually constructive feedback? So I I had to grapple with that and learn and to trust my instincts a lot more. And so, yeah. And so what happened was I didn't have that grounding in a professional setting. And so I had to learn the first few years in terms of, you know, what, what was going to be, helpful to me.

And how I could help support the organization and how I could. Share information in a way that people would listen, would understand it and believe it. And to me that was part of the early transition work for me was transitioning from just a everyday farm boy, you [00:25:00] know, on a tobacco farm in North Carolina to moving into a professional, career after college.

College helped shape and prepare me a little bit for it, but it really never prepares you because there's no. No cookie cutter approach to culture in an organization and where that organization may be at. And so the, yeah, to me, the early things were to listen, to work hard and to provide input and suggestions and not feel shy.

The first thing that I had to overcome was this notion of, well. If I'm on a working team, I expected the leader to be the one to make the final decision. And if I had an idea, you know, if he wanted my idea, he'd ask me for it. And what I had to learn was you have to be a little bit more assertive and, aggressive and just speaking up and saying, Hey, I've got an idea and so forth, and let me share it with you and not take,

not take response negatively. In some cases you might have [00:26:00] a real poor leader who might say, well, that's a bad idea, you know, let's move on or something. Yeah. So it's in, in the way that the relationship is created, with that supervisor or that leader. And so those were some of the learnings that I had to, address early in my career.

Yeah, that's fascinating. Now, what year are we talking here, roughly? You don't have to out your age if you don't want. It was in 1973 in Eastern North Carolina in a community that didn't even have a McDonald's or a Burger King. Right? It was just a very small manufacturing town where I worked at Weyerhaeuser was the only game in town, and it was a very.

A good company, but, and so you either worked there or you did something else that wasn't as productive and as, financially beneficial and so forth. Wow. And what made you, I mean, having grown up on a farm, what made you want to go into the corporate world? The farm. [00:27:00] No, you didn't feel, didn't wanna milk cows at five in the morning.

There you go. All of that. I say C in North Carolina. Crop to back and. During that era, things were still not as highly mechanized as they are today. So farming has become, much more mechanized and automated and so forth in terms of production and harvesting and so forth. And so I knew that I didn't really want to do that.

I wanted to pursue, in fact, I didn't even know I wanted to work in private industry. I went to work right outta college in a, as a. As an assistant for research and planning. And there's a story even behind that. When I saw the ad, , I said, see, I think I could do that. And so I went and applied for and talked to the executive director and he says, I don't know if you've got skills to do this.

You know, thanks. But, no thanks. And so that was the first day. The second day, a day later, I said, well, I'm gonna go back again. [00:28:00] Goodness, I'm gonna pe to this guy. And so by the end of the week, I finally, he said, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a try and so forth. But it's also the idea of not necessarily.

Undervaluing yourself in terms of your marketability and to be able to speak up and speak out about how you might be able to support the mission of the organization and so forth. Mm-hmm. And what, how did you get passionate about, you know, what you ended up doing with culture and inclusion? Like what were, was it those early experiences or what drove you there?

Well, I would be, how do I say this? In college, I would be kind of one of those activists who was out protesting for civil rights and social justice and change. And so my passion for human resources work really grew out of my and diversity, and, affirmative action and all of that. I actually grew out of that, that grounding in college where.

You know, as I looked at, how people [00:29:00] like me were being represented in organizations, they were oftentimes not represented. And the challenge then was how can I help create a process, that would allow more people that, that are underserved, underrepresented into the workplace? And at that time, Weyerhaeuser, was actually trying to do more of that.

And so what was. Exciting for me when I first started was as a personnel representative. I did a lot of interviewing. I said, oh, this is kind of cool. I could sit in there and talk to people and interview them and make recommendations about them for employment. But then it started to expand in terms of how do we create a more inclusive, and diverse organization.

And so I said, well. You're only going to these schools, why don't you consider going to these other schools where there's a higher number of people who look like me that could be potential candidates? And so part of it was helping to rethink [00:30:00] and reshape kind of the approach, and the outreach to those communities.

And, because if you don't go there, you're not obviously gonna have them in your. Pool. And if you don't have 'em in your pool, what's gonna happen? You're gonna get the same old thing that you always got. And so that, that speaks to all dimensions of business in terms of, perspectives, ideas, approaches, exploration in fact, in terms of other potential ways to improve.

And what's helpful to me is really, appreciating the business imperative, the economic drivers that, and, what was gratifying, you know, when I would read reports from McKenzie and, you know, other consulting firms like Accenture and Deloitte and the work that they were doing, you know, they began to emphasize how having.

More diverse, inclusive approaches to carrying out their business was in fact good for business. That you're not doing this just because, of [00:31:00] compliance and regulation, that you're getting brilliant ideas and, you're able to. Penetrate markets that perhaps you never penetrated before. So there is an economic value to be had as well.

So for me it was getting excited about helping people think about new ways to solve that challenge. I keep getting stuck on things you said about the segregation in the town and what you experienced going into the corporate world. Could you, could you say more, more about that? Because 1973, that's a long time after people, after people think segregation ended, right?

Yeah. Well, well here's a, an experience that I had during my early years at that. Location in Weyerhaeuser. The town was segregated. In fact, the country club where, you know, people played golf and in fact also would go to eat lunch, was, you know, we perceived it to be segregated and so forth. And so as I would recruit, I recruited [00:32:00] a chemical engineer, African-American chemical engineer, and we became good friends.

And he said, gee, you know, if you're going to start attracting more people like us to, to this community, you know, we've gotta break down some barriers and so forth. Not just at work, but within the community. And so he and I decided one of the things we wanted to test out, and I was a little bit nervous about doing this, but he said, you know, take for example, the country club, you know.

It's the only nice place to go eat lunch in the town, but it appears that, you know, we can't go there, or at least we think we can't go there. And so he said, okay, let's do this. Let's just show up one day out there and see if we could be served at this, at this country club. And so we went out and we actually, you know, we actually did get [00:33:00] seated and we actually were served.

So it was that fear that had taken over and that, oh, we can't do that. You know, we are not allowed there. And I said, those are some of the types of barriers that we. We experienced. I'm thinking about the invisible barriers that you were talking about, with the country club and there are so many invisible barriers in workplaces that people don't even realize are there?

Right. Like leaders saying, yeah, I've got an open door policy, anyone can come talk to me. But not everyone feels the same level of comfort to actually do that. Right? Right. Some people see those invisible barriers there. Talk to me about that. What are invisible barriers that you've found in workplaces that get in the way?

Well, I think, there are a couple of things, you know. Closeness, you know, where you work, who you're inter a, you're relating with, and how work is carried out. Because sometimes you get so caught up. One of the invisible barriers is getting caught up in your work in not taking [00:34:00] time to, to advocate, to build relationships, to collaborate.

One of the things that as I looked at people who advanced within the organization, they basically had, you know, there was a. The three E concept, that one, senior female leader, vp, one of our highest ranking females at Wyser at the time, said there three. The three E's. Remember the three E's experience?

Figure out where you need to get the experience to, to be competitive. Two education, make sure you have the educational grounding for the work you do, and three exposure. That is not enough. I mean, you could be in your office or cubbyhole is what I was, you know, because during that time we were a open landscape type of organization where there were no private offices.

But that exposure is key because you want to get yourself in front of people who can make decisions about your career or may maybe consider sponsoring. You in terms of your own personal development and growth and so [00:35:00] forth. And so for me, some of those hidden barriers were the cubby holes, the pitch, you know, the, you know, the places that we work and not feeling comfortable venturing out, asking questions or, building relationships.

I think some of it was that even some of the biases around qualifications for roles in a fairly large company with a variety of divisions, you know, working in one division, people might say, well, you can't work in my division. You only have experienced in that other division.

And as you move up the organization, the technical skills around how you do work becomes less important than, than the leadership skills or the general management skills. And you can acquire those across a variety of business lines. And so one of the things that we saw early on was this model of promote from within and promote from within your business sector and not,

not [00:36:00] try to compete for jobs in another division? Well, we kind of busted that paradigm at warehouser when we started what we call cross business development. So we'd identify people who were emerging leaders, through our succession planning process and say, could they lead a facility or, operation in this business given their background and skills.

And we, we tended to do more of that. And a reason for that oftentimes is that women and people of color were heavily concentrated in staff roles, staff support roles, human resources, communications, accounting, and they had, as good a skills as those that started out in a production oriented environment or manufacturing environment.

And so it was figuring out how to create more cross collaboration and so forth, and getting leadership. To accept that was part of it. Getting the leadership to, to accept that you don't [00:37:00] necessarily need a person to come, you know, grow up just in that product line or in that business. There is some value in having that cross-fertilization because of perspectives and ideas and so forth.

So we did more of that. So I think in terms of invisible barriers, that was one of those. Another invisible value in some respects is geographic, you know. It was a fairly significant, decision for me to move from North Carolina to Seattle, Washington because all of my family was in North Carolina and I came from a large family, as did my wife.

And so to uproot and to disrupt ourselves from the family was a big decision. And so. It was adjusting to new norms and new behaviors and new observations that we didn't see back south. So I think those are, and being willing to be curious about that as opposed to back away or a [00:38:00] retreat from it.

Those were just some things as well. Yeah. You know, we talk, we often talk on this podcast about the different kinds of culture, the different cultures we belong to, and certainly moving from North Carolina to Seattle must have been a big culture shift in that res, in that respect. Yeah. There's another dimension of it is particularly around people of color and especially African Americans.

When I first started . In business, the culture was extremely formal. You know, you had to show up at work with a shirt and tie. You could have a sports coat on, but you generally had to, have a certain tie on if you were the men and women had to be dressed. There was no pants and so forth during that era.

And so that was a fairly interesting shift. And as times changed and, you know, protocols shifted, what I found was that. In many respects, some people still love to dress up. And, and I was one of those, oh, you're looking pretty [00:39:00] sharp to be here at work today. I mean, but it was kind of, you know, you were trying to play the part, or to look the part in terms of how you dressed and so forth.

And the more casual, you know, I thought I looked the less serious they may. Thought that I was about the job and the role and so forth. So it was this kind of constant adaptation to this growing informality of business environments and so forth, because early in my career it was quite formal.

If you, it was, this was interesting if you . Wore a shirt and tie and you took off your jacket in your office. If you had to go to a meeting at a reading room, you'd pick up the jacket, put it on, and go to the meeting in that, in that conference room. So it was quite, mm-hmm. Quite an interesting time.

It's quite different obviously today. But it was sort of part of that evolution of that, of the culture and those things that made sense and so forth. Yeah. Do you think that bias played a role [00:40:00] in that? I mean, you hear like, like who gets to. Who feels comfortable to dress casual and who doesn't?

It feels like maybe there's some biases that come into play too. I think, what do you think about that? Absolutely. I think there are some biases. And, it's that perception of who you are. And this notion, particularly in the black community, you ought be twice as good to get half as far. And part of that.

It was also based on how you dressed and in some cultures outside of work, when you went to places to worship, to church, or if you're going, even after you went out to the club back in the seventies and eighties, men tended to dress up much more and looked apart. And I attribute that.

To the fact that many of us were in farming communities and worked in, blue jeans and all of that. And so we wanted a place where we could go and look good. And so that, I think in many respects, [00:41:00] culturally, also extended to the workplace. And so looking good, you know, dressed up.

Hair comb, all of this stuff. Mm-hmm. It was part of the conditioning at that time. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I wonder, I bet some listeners haven't heard that before. What you were saying about this idea that in the black community you have to work twice as hard to get half as far. Can you say more about that?

Like how. People, how does that get passed along those ideas? Like I bet people just aren't familiar with that. Yeah, that's, one form of that is what's called the talk in terms of, when you go out in the community at night or something like that, you get stopped by policemen. You know, there's a certain behavior you have to exhibit, because of, the fear of, of being, dealt with negatively, you know, or even shot or killed and so forth. So there's this whole grooming, this talk about how in [00:42:00] multicultural relationships you have to act and behave and that extended . In many respects to the workplace, in many of the universities, particularly HBCUs, you know, there was, there were programs, there were organizations that helped you, learn how to dress, learn how to talk, learn how to behave in, a situation.

And it was particularly. Part of the grooming process in, in the African American community. Mm-hmm. In fact, you know, we, you know, and, and it is gotten a lot more relaxed, but in many families you were observed by your parents when you're going out. And if you weren't dressed correctly or appropriately, they would.

Bring you back in and say, you need to go iron that shirt. I mean, when our kids were really young and we moved to Seattle, one of the things that Helen would do would be to press their jeans and they'd have little creases in the jeans and so forth. And, because part of it was looking good, because if you look good, people have higher expectations [00:43:00] of you.

One day the kids came in and said, mom, stop. I got changed. Kids' out here. , Don't we press gene Now I'm getting, I'm getting, teased about, the facts. I've got such cre gene that mm-hmm. I mean, so it's, it was all those little things, those adjustments to the cultural differences and so forth.

Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. I mean, when, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding when people hear the word privilege, like white privilege for example. But they, people think that means, oh, everything. Your whole life was easy and you got everything handed to you when in fact, it's things like just not having to think about what you're talking about, right?

Like not having to think about those things that you even had like. Courses on Right. Dressing and stuff like that. Well, and it was even, early, real, early on in the sixties and so forth before that, growing up as a kid in the South, there were places you could go and places you couldn't go and [00:44:00] places.

I mean, you know, I was remembering, the Greensboro four, the four African American kids, out of North Carolina, a and t, who, decided to help integrate a lunch counter at Woolworths at the time. And that was part of the whole movement, for civil rights and so forth. And so a lot of things that people don't appreciate and some of those cultural dynamics haven't all gone away.

You know, in terms of the fear. In terms of the bias, my family was the first to integrate a school in North Carolina, and with that, you know, we were bombarded with phone calls and threats. About if we weren't taken out of those schools, they were coming to burn a cross in our yard and so forth.

And, well, my father was a military veteran, we had lots of guns and so he said, bring it on. We'll be here to meet you. Wow. I mean, it was that kind of dynamic at play. And to not let fear rule, you know, your decisions and, your opportunities and so forth. [00:45:00] Wow, that's intense and feels very brave.

Also, gosh. Yeah. So what, I mean, what, tell me more about that. Be that's a big deal being the first family to integrate this school. Like what else happened with that? Well, there were challenges and calls, and there was disparaging remarks made. I didn't, I was the last to attend, you know, historically African American high school.

My brother next to me was the first, mainly because it was a brand new high school that had just been built, but I had already built relationships and friends at the school, so I said I, I might as well finish out my, high school career there. He went to the school and it was challenging, because issues around how you talk, one of, I'll give you.

Illustration of that, when one of my kids was in middle school here in Seattle, in Federal way, he had been given an assignment to work with his parents on an essay or some [00:46:00] report. As well, I can remember, been a number of years ago. And so we worked with him in terms. You know, his writing style and the materials he needed to have as a part of that report.

And he submitted it in and he, then a couple of days later, we got a call from the teacher that said, there's something wrong with your son's report. And we said, what? Yeah, it's too good. It's just too good. So, I was at work, so I talked to my wife and we said, what does, what do they mean?

It's too good? So we need to, because you know, the instructions were work with your parents, lay it out, write it yourself, which is what he did. But it was, deemed too good. And so we had to have a conversation with the teacher and the principal about that type of mm-hmm. Behavior because it was,

it was very disrespectful and it assumed that, you know, he did not have the intellectual capability to do level [00:47:00] at that work. And if you think about that with other kids in the school, particularly kids of color, it would be demoralizing , and they would lose faith and hope and.

In some cases be relegated to a special education class or something like that. So , it was important for us to confront that head on. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's, and that, and feel that feeling. Inclusion. I mean, we talk a lot about feeling inclusion in a workplace, but feeling inclusion in a school is so important too.

One of the main factors for how much you can learn is just how inclu, how much inclusion do you feel in that school? How much do you feel part of a network of care, rather than experiencing all those biases. So absolutely, that makes a difference. Yeah. Switching gears, thank you for sharing all of that.

That. What must feel, I don't know. Does it feel painful to recall those memories or what does it feel like to you now? Well, it [00:48:00] feels like I've matured into understanding how to navigate. More effectively and , to help coach and guide my children and grandchildren and so forth. And it was painful at the time, but it was a growth opportunity for me and it expanded the way I think about.

Things and, the way I've worked since, my retirement and, my founding of my company and my work with the Institute for, sustainable Diversity and Inclusion, because it's an ongoing process. You know, in, I'm writing a short report on what I call fif, I'll say it, 15, that the title of the report is 15.

So lemme see if you can guess what 15 is all about. Mm. I love the title. I love the mystery. I can't even guess. Okay. Nine, 20, 40 is 15 years from now. Oh, okay. And 2040, is the time when it's [00:49:00] predicted that the US will become a majority minority society and democracy. And so 15 is. As we start to move towards that, and in some cases the population under 18 is already there.

So the question, it becomes one of adjustments and adaptations and inclusion. And how do you think now differently about a society that, you know, there's no one demographic that, has the superpower that it may have had in the past, and what are the challenges that that might left, might present for those who might.

I wanna resist that kind of society. And what are the opportunities for building a more, inclusive society? So 15 is just my way of talking about and saying, here's what's likely to happen. And how do you think about that from a. Organizational standpoint from a business standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, from a relationships, and coalition building standpoint.

So it's, yeah, just, I wanna [00:50:00] go ahead. I wanna hear more, I wanna hear more about it. Like what, if you could imagine, knowing all that you know about workplaces, and with all your experience, what do you imagine is gonna be different in workplaces in 15 years? Well, there's two concepts that I think that will be different.

The current view is that because of this exploding, demographic change, that the workplace will look and feel and the expectations will be different. That's true. But for some people, it feels like jobs that they traditionally, had the power and influence over. They won't have because there's a.

There's a mixture of people that are going to be competing for those roles. So replacement, you know, in terms of what used to be will no longer be, it's just kind of how we're evolving to this new reality. The other part of it is what I call displacement, and displacement really, is the. The really [00:51:00] rapid, change being created by technology, artificial intelligence, GPT, all of those things, yeah, are actually changing the way organizations think about work and how work is performed inside and outside of organizations.

In fact, if you look today, I'd say of all workers, you know, probably 30 to 40% of them are freelancers, people who work on their own that are not tied day to day to a particular business, as you'll see. Likely see more of that. The other thing that I think because of technology, the world becomes smaller in terms of relationships and understanding.

And so by 2040, you know, someone in Ethiopia for example, will have the technology and the understanding and the access to information and data that, when I was growing up, you didn't have access beyond your, rotary phone. Right. And the people you could call. Yeah. So if you think about the reality of this fascinating transformation in terms of work and [00:52:00] production and things like that, it's gonna create a different dynamic in the way people work and where they work.

I call it deployed versus, non-deployed talent. Deployed talent, are those freelancers and so forth that make up a bigger proportion of the work you think of today? In a lot of the consulting firms, when they have a lot of their, work outsourced to India or south America or Asia, I mean, you're probably gonna see more of that as an efficiency and a cost, dynamic at play.

So those are things I think leaders and organizations need to be considering and thinking about. Yeah. Yeah. It's such a disruptive time. I mean, AI itself is so disruptive in, in so many ways. I wanted to ask too, you've done so much work on inclusion standards, and I wanted to ask like how you see standards being important for culture for inclusion at an organization?

The thing that I think the standards [00:53:00] do that some earlier work in DEI did not do was to start to think about this as part of a social system. I call it a system, an ecosystem. And I talk about the concept, and this is kind of the book I'm working on now. It's called Diversity is Not the Defect.

Exclusion is, and what I mean by that is that if you think about. Your human system in an organization. If, an aspect of how you manage that system is, missing, whether it's diversity of thought, perspective, background, whatever. Then you suboptimize the system. And particularly as we start to move towards 20 40 15, you,

you have people who have greater expectations. The other thing that is different that 20 years ago, 10 years ago, people did not have to contend with this, the cry of the stakeholder. And so, I mean, you see that in [00:54:00] the issue with the target and how, they, decided to back away from their commitment to an inclusive approach to the business and back away from the DEI programs and how it impacted their,

their results, their OROI and their reputation and the fact that they lost a fairly sub substantial slice of business from, a predictable community that was not happy with that decision, as opposed to say a. A, Costco, which is here in our area, their headquarters, who've have basically integrated, this work into the social fabric of who they are as a business.

And it becomes sort of just a part of who they are. So the standards really start to help you kind of tease out and think of this work. Not as a human resource imperative, but one that is, one that's a stakeholder imperative that in order to truly optimize your value with your customers, [00:55:00] with your communities, even with employees, and if you look simply at the.

Cost of turnover and retention and you tease that out by demographic sectors and you find that a particular demographic is turning over twice the rate of everyone else. It helps you then pinpoint the challenges or opportunities that you have within the business. So the real key is to see, the work.

As an integral part of the social system within, and the fabric of the organization not as a, an initiative or compliance driven activity. And so if you look at. Marketing, for example, , what's the inclusion lens that should be applied? If you look at even accounting, what's the inclusion lens that should be applied?

If you look at, growth in terms of expansion activities, what's the inclusion or diversity implications of that growth? If you look at, human capital, and who you have, what's [00:56:00] the. , What's the inclusion or diversity dimension of that? I mean, the folks with the loudest voices today are shouting quotas and reverse discrimination.

It's really not about that. It's creating organizations and cultures. That are adapting to, responding to and building the capability to serve a much more diverse and inclusive society than we've seen in the past. And you can't do that by continuing to do the things that you've always done and the way you've always done 'em.

It's not going, it's not going to work. I love that. That's, that feels like a good place to rap. 'cause that's inspirational. Where can people find out more about you and your writing? I'd invite anyone who'd like to find out. I do a lot of posts on LinkedIn and, I actually accompanied some of my writings with music, lyrics, which I create.

That are tied to the article that I'm writing. The theory that I [00:57:00] have there just to, as I'm closing this out, is to say that we have to think differently about how we communicate and share information. And as you look at the, generation that's now being trained on clickbait, click bytes and so forth, you've got it.

Share data in a way that they can understand and creates a curiosity to wanna learn more. And so I find that sometimes my music will appeal to someone who may not wanna spend the time in reading, an essay or an article. So, yeah. Oh, that's really cool. So LinkedIn is the place, and I'm actually on Substack now.

So you can actually, participate in some of what I write there. And, my website is www hender works.com. With is d the Institute for In Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion is www i for sdi.org. That's another, or you can. Send me a note at my email, [00:58:00] fsHenderson@hiworks.com.

Excellent. Thank you. And one final question. I sometimes like to give listeners an optional sort of homework assignment, if they wanted to try out something new. You know, you're talking about organizations trying something new, but sometimes it's really helpful for people to try something new too. If people wanted to try something new or read something, or watch something that you would recommend, what assignment would you give them?

Gee, that's, that's interesting. I don't wanna be self-serving, but I've just published earlier this year a book that reflects a lot of my thinking. It's called Spine, and Spine is an acronym for the word strategy. Practice, ideation, need and Execution. So if you're interested in something like that, it's on Amazon, or if you're interested in my 15, it's more of a piece of writing.

Send me a note. I may. Decide to share it with you. Alright, there you go. Alright. A little [00:59:00] challenge, you may get it from him if you email. Eni, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. I know our listeners appreciate it and, we, I'll talk to y'all soon. Thank you. Thank you, byebye.

All right. Bye-bye.

Okay. That is it for the show this week. I hope you enjoyed hearing about Ness. I hope you got some new insights. I knew I did in terms of history and bias and organizational culture. Ness gave you one idea for a follow up. If you're interested. I've got another follow up action you can take if you're so inclined, if you are close with somebody who's older in your family.

Friend, network, whatever. Sit down with him and ask him some pointed questions about race and history. You heard FNI talking about his history. It's really interesting to hear that firsthand from people. [01:00:00] And sometimes you'll be shocked. I met someone at a party just the other day who's talking about how college kids in his fraternity would terrorize black students on campus.

This is in Louisiana. In his fraternity. Right. Not his parents, his. So talk to people and get a real sense of how close this horrific history is. And then you, maybe you can also get a sense of the lingering effects today. And not just the lingering effects, but sometimes the exact same things, right? Okay, folks, take care of yourselves, take care of others.

I will talk with you soon.

So that's it for today's episode and the Culture Advantage Podcast. Head on over Apple Podcast iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. [01:01:00] One lucky listener. Every single week that posts review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes, we'll win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000.

Private VIP day with Michael himself. Be sure to head on over to culture advantage podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Michael's gift and join us on the next episode.